PRESS

"In the evening, it was back to The Dance Centre for Saturday night's mainstage presentation of Vanessa Goodman/action at a distance's Wells Hill and Delia Brett/MACHiNENOiSY's plaything. I've blogged about the original presentation of Wells Hill, as part of the 2015 Chutzpah! Festival, [below]. The movement is as gorgeous as ever, at once languid and sinewy and robustly energetic in a way that is equally responsive to Gould playing Bach and to Gabriel Saloman's original immersive sound score. It was also interesting to see the piece in the more intimate setting of The Dance Centre (which I gather partly inspired the new costumes designed by Ziyian Kwan), and to witness the individual embodied contributions of new cast members Karissa Barry, Dario Dinuzzi, and Alexa Mardon. I look forward to the premiere of the full piece in 2017 at SFU Woodward's."

"Last night at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, the Chutzpah! Festival presented a double bill of dance. The evening opened with the premiere of a new work by local choreographer and SFU Contemporary Arts alum Vanessa Goodman. Wells Hill takes its name from the street in Toronto where Marshall McLuhan lived before moving to Wychwood Park, and where he wrote three of his most famous works: The Gutenberg Galaxy, Understanding Media, and The Medium is the Massage. (It helps that I live with, and was sitting beside, a noted McLuhan scholar.) Goodman takes inspiration from McLuhan's ideas about mass communication and, especially via his collaborations with Glenn Gould, how media affect the ways we produce and consume art.

To a recording of Gould performing The Goldberg Variations, a sextet of incredibly gifted Vancouver dancers (Lara Barclay, Lisa Gelley, James Gnam, Josh Martin, Bevin Poole, and Jane Osborne) begin moving in formation stage right, their deconstructed white tuxedo shirts and grey skirts and slacks evoking elite private school uniforms (the costumes are by Deborah Beaulieu), an image reinforced by the evocative floor and overhead florescent lighting design by James Proudfoot. The five dancers, initially tightly grouped and moving their arms synchronously and geometrically to frame their heads and torsos, slowly break apart and fan out across the stage. At this point, Barclay begins weaving in and around them, our focus drawn to her different movement patterns, the amount of space she is covering relative to the others, and, in this instance, the deliberate showcasing of her virtuosity. If dance is a performance medium that also in some senses performs us, Goodman seems to be asking, in this opening sequence, a key structural question: how, to paraphrase W.B.Yeats, do we separate the dancer from the dance?

This parts/whole, content/form equation was what I kept focusing on throughout the remainder of the piece. For example, following the opening group sequence we get a gorgeous duet between Gnam and Poole; as they finish, they move upstage, making way for the pairing of Gelley and Osborne. As kinetically compelling as the the downstage duo is (and these women are truly exceptional movers), our attention is necessarily divided between them and the upstage duo, a reminder that in contemporary dance our awareness and sensory-motor perceptors are being hailed in multiple ways, and often simultaneously. So too is it when Martin joins the group a bit later in the piece; he is moving differently than the others, more fluidly, and as he floats in and out between the others' bodies we cannot help but follow his progress. Finally, there is the stunningly arresting final tableau that Goodman gives us: Barclay, having first been grabbed from behind by Gelley, is steered stage left, as one-by-one the other dancers attach themselves to her body (and to each other) from the wings, manipulating her limbs like she is a marionette (an image with obvious dance-world resonance). However, Gnam remains apart from this group, dancing a solo in counterpoint to the larger group machine.

A lot is going on here. On the one hand, Goodman seems to be suggesting that if the dancer's body is a medium, then it is the choreographer who ultimately works it over. But sometimes even the most disciplined bodies can resist being conscripted for a particular message--hence Gnam dancing alone off to the side. Then, too, the dance-as-performed works on us (including kinaesthetically), a reminder that in the feedback loop of communication it is the audience that completes the circuit of both the medium and the message. This is something Gould recognized. Influenced by McLuhan, he famously gave up live performance for the perfectibility of the recording studio. But he never forgot who was at the other end of "his master's voice," that his records needed to be played and listened too. (Gould and McLuhan both appear at various points in screen projections curated by Goodman and Ben Didier). Likewise, in this very smart and important new work, Goodman recognizes that if, in McLuhan's words, "Art is anything you can get away with," that art nevertheless demands a response."

"Goodman’s Wells Hill (named for the street of McLuhan’s family home) uses dance to comment, sometimes ironically, on the texts of Gould and McLuhan, who shared many prescient ideas about technology and art. (The Canadian icons also appear in fuzzy video.) The piece opens with a projection of the famous McLuhan quote “Art is anything you can get away with,” counterpointed by Goodman’s dancers going through classic dance motions to echoey studio-piano music.

Wearing white dress shirts and grey bottoms, like deconstructed suits from the McLuhan era, the six dancers are top-notch, including an expressive Lara Barclay and James Gnam. The most powerful moments are when they enact, metaphorically, the hold media has on us, punctuated by voice-overs like the one of McLuhan warning that TV is feeding an unprecedented amount of information at high speed into children’s brains. At one point a dancer manipulates Barclay like a doll, covering her eyes, moving her hands and legs, and doubling her over; soon others join in, moving her till all five of her stage partners have overtaken her body. It’s in scenes like this you can really sense Goodman’s ability to choreograph; she also excels at creating a look and atmosphere, here with James Proudfoot’s stark white spot and fluorescent lighting and Gabriel Saloman’s original-sound compositions."

"The night opens with local choreographer Vanessa Goodman’s work Wells Hill. Inspired by the text and theories of Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould, the piece begins with a delightful juxtaposition: McLuhan’s quote “Art is anything you can get away with” is projected on screen while traditional ballet piano plays and the dancers begin their contemporary movements. This tongue-in-cheek attitude towards contemporary art is part of what made Wells Hill a joy to watch.Visually Wells Hill lives in a simple-yet-stunning greyscale, with bright white lighting on grey and white costumes. The movements of the dancers are simple and light, the whole thing feeling as airy as a breezy summer afternoon.

Intending to explore communication and our relationship with medium and performance, this light touch reflects the way we easily accept and incorporate new media into our lives without realizing that we are ultimately letting it control us. This concept is relayed clearly in a final image of a dancer being manipulated, first by one other dancer, then another and another, until she has a small mob following and controlling her, and she barely even notices it’s happening."

"Goodman followed with a solo called "Floating Upstream," a work that once again showcased how beautifully and intuitively she moves to the original electronic soundscapes created by frequent collaborator Locsil. The piece begins with Goodman in a crouch centre stage, her back towards the audience. Clutching each of the long billowy white pant legs of the costume she is wearing up around her thighs, she slowly bounce-shuffles up stage, like she is wading through a heavy current or a soupy swamp. Following Goodman's program note, we can read the white pants as a nimbus of clouds through which she has thrust her body, keen to explore a different view and set of spatial orientations. At the same time, I couldn't also help seeing the hitched up pants as Victorian-era bloomers, symbol of gendered bodily constraint that in Goodman's efforts, having reached the upstage wall and turned to face the audience, not to let her cuffs fall means she literally has to keep her knees together. Either way, the initial isolation of Goodman's upper body means that we are able to marvel at the simultaneous flow and precision of her movement, her arms undulating in waves through the layered wash of Locsil's score only to jab suddenly at the air in response to successive musical pulses. Later, having freed up her legs and let loose her pantaloons, Goodman is also able to transition seamlessly from a rubbery Gagaesque style of inside-out lines and limbs into a version of a robot dance that, when placed in the context of past solo work (I'm thinking especially of Container), suggests a recurring theme of moving within, as well as busting out, of prescribed convention. Whether or not this is intentional, it's utterly compelling to watch."

"A visceral solo dance bursting out of a starkly abstract stage and costume design. Goodman's character is born into a rectangle of light, moves powerfully but haltingly through the darkness, and then returns to the light.One-line review: Goodman moved to the industrial-ambient music like one of its notes made flesh in a way that elicited from me an audible and unbeckoned "damn" at the end of the performance." Rich Smith/The Seattle Stranger (2016)

"As I reflect the opening weekend of NWNW Festival, there are three performances that struck a cord with me. And got me excited about PNW arts again. The first being Vanessa Goodman.Vanessa Goodman: She is what others try to be when it comes to contemporary dance and performance. Musicality, physicality, spiritual, control, articulation, loss of control and joy. She could have easily been lost on the Mainstage , but she easily made the stage her willing and small partner." Dani Terrill/On the Boards Blog (2016)

"Goodman's solo Container, a version of which she presented earlier this June at the Magnetic North Festival, showcases what an amazing mover she is. Clad in nude-coloured dance semis and what looked like mini combat boots, and combining hyper-kinetic android-like movements with various club grooves, Goodman reminded me at various points of a cross between Priss from Blade Runner and Miley Cyrus--but without the look-at-me twerking, and with a much more gorgeous silhouette. At one point, early on in the piece, Goodman launches into a deep lunge, arching her back in way that had me wishing I could mimic that pose on the beach. Then, too, there is Goodman's innate musicality, as when she pulses her upper body and arms in simple yet hypnotic time to the electronic sound score by Loscil (the Vancouver-based artist Scott Morgan). To go back to that sci-fi connection I made via the Blade Runner reference, Container ends with Goodman dancing in a single, slowly fading spot upstage (the lighting is again by Proudfoot), her upper body raised to the ceiling as if she is about to be transported to another world, one that is big enough to contain her outsized talents."Peter Dickinson/Performance, Place and Politics (2015)

"Now to casually and swiftly change subject: Vanessa Goodman. Peter Dickinson writes: “Container ends with Goodman dancing in a single, slowly fading spot upstage… her upper body raised to the ceiling as if she is about to be transported to another world, one that is big enough to contain her outsized talents.” Yes. Her “outsized talents.” For a petite, compact woman (she stands right below my chin), she is a lanky, sinew-y, and precise monster on the stage. Ones bones may dictate size, but holy, talent and energy abounds.

Watching Container I felt a foreign feeling in my viscera. I often watch professional dancers whom I respect, Goodman being one of them, but rarely do I feel an excitement in the future of dance, art, and the performer’s career. Goodman sparked this responsive exhilaration in me that posed a friendly challenge. Not a challenge to me specifically, but to the dance world at large: how can the ephemeral art form of dance burn in your mind and be a torch bearer for the universal human desire of progress and understanding? Her stretching limbs, smiling face, and pulsating spine created a score that developed through a cyclical momentum, showing the audience both the triumphs in the failures and the devastation in the laurels. I guess I would say that I feel the excitement a peer would have towards what Goodman creates next. Obviously she and I are of different generations, separated by a multitude of years and experiences, but her welcoming demeanour shone onto the Firehall audience and warmly invited us into her odyssey."

"The work presented thus far at Dancing on the Edge has provided hope that our contemporary culture is not using art for social regulation or as a means to a radical end. Dance in Vancouver (if Chambers, Goodman and Hong Kong Exile can serve as vibrant examples) is truly pushing us to an edge where we must build the path as expeditiously as we step forward. If dance rarely comes up as a subfield of “art”, then these works are not scratching out a definition for dance, but redefining what art is. Or they’re just amazing performances that are life-affirming and guide me in carving out a piece of existence; dance is great, and thankfully it can be found everywhere."Ileanna Cheladyn/Dancing on the Edge Blog (2015)

"For sheer physical virtuosity, Vanessa Goodman’s Container stood out. Beneath stark lighting from the reliably excellent James Proudfoot, the composer-performer enacted several varieties of anguish at breakneck speed, switching from broken marionette to overwrought club kid to torture survivor with the kind of seeming ease that can only be achieved with intense discipline."Alexander Varty/Georgia Straight (2015)

A Vanessa Goodman/The Contingency Plan presentation, as part of Dancing on the Edge, with the Dance Centre. At the Scotiabank Dance Centre on Sunday, July 6. No remaining performances

DANCING ON THE EDGE 2014

In our ultrawired universe, it’s always inspiring to see what an imaginative artist can conjure with a few simple, low-tech objects.

Rising young choreographer Vanessa Goodman creates thrilling magic with sheets of plastic and a few hundred balloons. Her only plugged-in props are 10 off-stage fans that herd and blow the white, floating orbs into dizzying mini-tornadoes around the dancers.

What belongs to you opens with a pulsing strobe revealing alien figures in the dark: heads seem to jut out from columns of balloons, like creatures emerging from great batches of eggs. As the lights come up, they doff their balloons, except for Bevin Poole, looking ethereal as she dances and sheds them, gracefully, one by one.

Goodman and her five collaborating dancers find myriad ways to create striking imagery from their ever-bouncing props. At one point they gather them on a huge plastic sheet and lower them like a protective skin over performer Josh Martin, who’s lying on the ground; at another, he sticks his head inside a big transparent-plastic bag of the balloons and it becomes a convulsing, brainlike blob. But nothing matches the beauty of the magnetic, laser-focused Jane Osborne moving as the white spheres swirl and swarm around her like they’re alive. She’s soon joined by Poole, and when they clasp each other, lean in, and even share a transcendent kiss, the props are dancing as much as the performers.

If it sounds gimmicky, it’s not: the work is grounded in meaningful themes, specifically Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (you’ll recognize everything from the necessity of security, food, and shelter to the need to connect through love and community).

The work builds in complexity as the humans ascend the hierarchy and become fully realized. Along the way, there are sequences of physically exhilarating partnering (watch Osborne and Poole throw each other around and scatter the balloons) and compelling solos (rarely has Martin’s sheer muscular power been unleashed with this ferocity on a local stage).

Goodman, winner of the 2013 Iris Garland emerging-choreographer award, shows depth, innovation, and maturity with this new piece, while expressing herself in a way that is massively accessible because of the spectacular, sensory effect of the balloons and the visual tricks she achieves with them. This is dance that anyone would enjoy. And if she can do this with a few standard items from Home Depot and Party Bazaar, there’s no stopping her.

"It’s a stylishly complex work that seeks inspiration from Abraham Harold Maslow’s theory of the ‘Hierarchy of Needs.’"

"The balloons aren’t just inanimate props, they are a dynamic element of the surreal vision that the choreographer creates."

"In another kinetic sequence, balloons are propelled by forced air against two female dancers (Bevin Poole and Jane Osborne) at the back of the stage as they kiss and embrace. The display of sensuous physicality is characteristic of Goodman’s finely detailed choreography."

Vanessa Goodman is co-artistic director of The Contingency Plan, a Vancouver based contemporary dance collective. No doubt this talented artist will get some deserved buzz for her work from appearing on this week’s cover of the Georgia Straight."

RISING VANCOUVER CHOREOGRAPHER Vanessa Goodman has created a piece where, as she puts it, “the space dances as much as the performers.”

The effect comes courtesy of 10 fans and several hundred white balloons that bounce, float, and pop in the space around five dancers.

“One of the challenges, but also the amazing thing, is it’s never going to be the same twice,” Goodman, co–artistic director of The Contingency Plan, tells the Straight over cups of java amid the LP-covered walls of the East Side’s Far Out Coffee. She’s speaking before rehearsals for the premiere of her first full-length work, what belongs to you, at Dancing on the Edge. “And I say that with absolute delight,” she continues. “It’s built to shift and change and evolve with each moment.”

The young dance artist, who won the local Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award in 2013, putting her $5,000 winnings toward this project, has watched the piece similarly evolve and shift over three years of development.

The idea of balloons came up early in her process. She was working with the theme of the five senses, and found the balloons could symbolize everything from sound to taste to touch. She also liked the way they created lo-fi noises in the space.

The artist laughs, and says that she always ends up turning to props in her work: in her striking the long indoors last year, a giant, glowing, cocoonlike red sculpture hung eerily above her dancers, and in TCP’s Adhere, she and Jane Osborne explored the theme of loneliness by putting dancers into human-scaled Plexiglas boxes. “I start making a work and all of a sudden I have a roomful of objects,” she says, smiling. “But that also informs my work and allows me to break some perpetual habits.

Early on, she would blow up the balloons herself, by mouth—she was only using about 20. But as the piece developed through different versions at Dancing on the Edge and Dance Allsorts, plus a residency at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, the number of balloons grew and grew. She remembers dance artist and former Ballet B.C. dancer James Gnam, her rehearsal director, coming to watch the piece and encouraging her, “You need hundreds of balloons.” (Goodman likes to say it takes an army to create a dancework—even, in this case, including sponsorship from Home Depot and the Party Bazaar to pull off her set and props.)

Goodman also began exploring the objects’ potential for bringing to life Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the psychological theory that prioritizes necessities like shelter, food, love, and creativity. Here, too, she found the balloons could work in highly symbolic ways—just watch the way they lift above one dancer to form shelter—as she experimented. Most of all, their ephemerality captured the theory’s tenet that human beings are always “becoming” who they are, Goodman says; they are ever in a state of flux.

The final work, set to a cinematic electroacoustic score by Gabriel Saloman, will feel airy and ethereal, with dancers Osborne, Josh Martin, Lisa Gelley, Bevin Poole, and Erika Mitsuhashi moving amid the balloons, kicking through them, falling into them, and scattering them.

The symbolism runs deep, but the project has been hugely fun as well. Balloons are, after all, a prop strongly wired, in our collective memory banks, to birthday parties, circuses, and summer fairs.

“I’ll look over [during rehearsal] and someone will be doing something hilarious with a balloon,” says Goodman, who now blows up the hundreds of fresh balloons before each show with a pump. “Then there’s the jarring experience of having one pop. And I still find it quite funny when I’m blowing one up and it doesn’t get tied properly and it goes off into space. That’s what happens when you’re working with objects that are so playful.”

Dancing on the Edge presents what belongs to you on Saturday and Sunday (July 5 and 6) at the Scotiabank Dance Centre."

"What Belongs to Love performed by Jane Osborne and Bevin Poole (choreographer Vanessa Goodman) told the story of love's many phases. It was very cleverly lit by Jonathan Ryder, the lighting designer for the evening. One could interpret many aspects of love in the lighting and in the movements of the dancers. A clever and innovative piece, What Belongs to Love highlighted the theme of the evening on the eve of Valentine’s Day".Nancie Ottem / ReviewVancouver (2014)

the longs indoors "Goodman’s final work on the program was the most “dance-y”—and trance-y—on the program, and made it clear the young Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award–winner is well on her way to finding a unique choreographic voice. In her haunting the long indoors, crack dancers Kwan and Jane Osborne convulsed in their own, skittish groove under red-glowing, organlike blobs suspended from the ceiling. Moving to a soundscape that ranged from techno-industrial to heartbeats and what sounded like blood gurgling through veins, the pair moved almost like alien forms, lunging, partnering, then hurtling off in their own separate directions again. At one point Osborne seemed to fuse her fingers to Kwan’s neck, working her like some attached new member of her body, curling her up and arching her backward. Athletic, driving, and hypnotic, it felt hip—and fraught with mystery."Janet Smith / Georgia Straight (2013)

"Vanessa Goodman, co-artistic director of The Contingency Plan directs and collaborates with Jane Osborne and Ziyian Kwan in the long indoors, a duet that completes the program. The 2013 recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer award, Goodman lets the movement build in conjunction with her electronic arrangement, such that the dance is propelled by increasing intensity, quicker tempo and a driving beat in the final sections. The work opens in semi-darkness with the sound of crunching and grinding that gets louder and louder as Kwan and Osborne slowly shift and transfer their weight from side to side; rising and lowering on their toes; alternating one arm overhead, guided by slow undulations of the spine. Dressed in tank tops and boxer shorts, the costumes are perfect for giving the viewer the opportunity to observe the body in motion without the distraction of fabric or nudity.Osborne partners easily with Kwan. The pair capture the complexity of relationships and a sense of the inter-subjectivity or interior feeling that characterizes all friendships. The notion of Jane becomes the space between the performers, as well as the conflict and commonality that arises in relationships. In one of many strong moments, the two dancers move horizontally across the stage, their heads locked together, arms intertwined around shoulders and necks, like conjoined twins in motion.In several places, Osborne simply witnesses Kwan soloing, a generous and effective choice that lets us settle our attention on Kwan’s ease and facility moving in and out of the floor. Then, reversing roles, Osborne performs a series of low backward walks, falling off her centre repeatedly – a device that is strangely interesting. By the final sections, the combined steady rhythm and shadowy lighting produce a powerful trance-like, hypnotic effect. One puzzling aspect of the long indoors is the set feature, two matching papier-mâché-like creations hanging downstage at ceiling height. In some way they balance the space, but whether they reference capillaries, body organs or something else is a total mystery."Mary Theresa Kelly / The Dance Current(2013)

"For the final piece, The Contingency Plan premiered the long indoors, choreographed by Vanessa Goodman and danced by Jane Osborne and Ziyian Kwan. Featuring a bright red, bulbous paper sculpture installation by Amelia Epp hanging above the stage, this work was an abstract study of the internal body and its mysterious physical systems. The sound design added to the atmosphere of being inside the body, and the choreography was fluid with striking partner work. This collaborative effort was an enjoyable, thought-provoking evening of dance."Tessa Perkins / Press Plus 1 (2013)

"The third offering, the long indoors is a more finely detailed choreography than the previous works. Two dancers, Ziyian Kwan Jane Osbourne, share roughly equal responsibility for the execution of the dance vocabulary, with each dancer relying on their own individual strengths. Both performers display sensuous physicality and each bring a distinctly aesthetic dimension to Vanessa Goodman’s work."John Jane / Review Vancouver (2013)

peeling away like a bubble in wallpaper"Vanessa Goodman’s peeling away like a bubble in wallpaper is performed downstage, and this choice conveys an immediacy and connection. Goodman, co-artistic director of The Contingency Plan collective, credits the choreography as a collaboration with the four performers. She uses no objects or visual media, instead focussing on movement phrases supported by segments of recorded conversation between individuals about their illnesses. For instance, a man’s voice says: “I was diagnosed with a detached retina. Legally, I’m blind.” Michael Kong, Erika Mitsuhasi, Jane Osborne and Bevin Poole are a tight ensemble; Osborne’s quickness and lightness, Poole’s octopus-like fluidity, and Kong and Mitsuhasi’s sensitive partnering effectively evoke a sense of wonder from a work about the human senses. The dancers grab the rhythmic pulsation of each phrase, gathering in, consuming and metabolizing the space around them. The work is graced by the feeling that here, in these young artists, is the next generation of contemporary dancers."The Dance Current / Mary Theresa Kelly (2012)

"The dark and evocative mood... continued in Vanessa Goodman’s peeling away like a bubble in wallpaper, set on Contingency Plan dancers Michael Kong, Erika Mitsuhashi, Jane Osborne, and Bevin Poole, and to the music of Swans, A Silver Mt. Zion, and Silk Saw. Goodman’s title suggests a process of reduction, but instead the piece builds in complexity and momentum, rising out of half-lit vignettes (a lone woman fighting unseen forces; two dancers scooting across the floor on some sort of wheeled contraption) before becoming a quartet of considerable complexity. On an abstract level.... the dance was powerful, with the androgynous Poole the standout in a strong cast." Alexander Varty / Georgia Straight (2012)

"At a ceremony April 29 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Goodman received the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award. The biennial prize gives an artist between 19 and 35 $5,000 to produce their work at Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver.Through the award, Goodman, a co-artistic director of The Contingency Plan, plans to premiere what belongs to you, her first full-length work, in 2014." Janet Smith / Georgia Straight (2013)

MOving into Wells Hill

A five page article by Peter Dickinson discussing Wells Hill. Please click on the article to advance the pages.

Peter Dickinson is Professor in the School for the Contemporary Arts and the Department of English, and also Director of the Institute for Performance Studies, at Simon Fraser University.